Sunday, 5 February 2012

Retrospective, part 1

Being a recollection of all that happened before the post-party-sleeping-people-sex-people-coke-getting-rickshaw-based adventure.

Thursday was fun and frantic. I went to the station to get @sexwithrose, who turned up at the right time. I was worried I'd be late because the Victoria Line decided to stop working. I was, incidentally, accompanied by Mane's older sister, who was heading to uni at the time. After I'd said hi to Rose we had breakfast at Pret while waiting for @spacecheetos and good-boy-bad-boy to turn up. They did... eventually. But it took a while for us to find them. Or for them to find us. Whatever. We met up; it matters not.We went up to Camden, which was freezing cold but a lot of fun. We looked in thrift shops and through stalls in the Lock, avoiding the market in case all money was spent randomly. GBBB acted like a tourist and took lots of snaps. Lots. And lots. There was a smattering of people with pink hair and big shoes on the side of buildings. I almost hit GBBB with a flogger I found in Cyberdog, but I didn't. He hit Shalla with one, however. We ended up in a pub, where we stayed until well past four, and were joined by another guy, whose name I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say or not. But that's pseudonymous blogging for you.We then went into the City of London, which was kind of interesting, except about fifty degrees colder. We went to a pub in London Bridge with a view to a drink and games, except there was nowhere at all to sit. Eventually we split up with the promise to reconvene the next day. I went back to my house, feeling slightly weather-beaten, but more upbeat and energetic than I'd been during the first half of the day. I put Rose in my spare room and we chatted for a while about why they hadn't made an Artemis Fowl movie yet (although apparently they're writing one!) and how Twilight is shit. We played variants of Smash Bros., at which she started beating me after a while, and Mario Kart, wherein we were pretty evenly matched (both kept losing). And there were cookies.

Friday was frolicky and frisky. I travelled up to St. Pancras, again accompanied by Mane's older sister. I stood for far too long in a line to get tickets, then found Rose, Shalla, GBBB, Lusty, Lily, @lostwithoutluna, @blacksilkblog, @jillyboyd and @annieplayer. I bought some Innocent juice and we piled onto a train, for a ride which included lots of loud discussion about sex toys and some quite scared passengers. Taxis took us to the headquarters of sextoys.co.uk, where @rebeccalowrie, @mollysdailykiss and @domsigns joined us. @thecarasutra organised chairs for us while Emma made tea, and we had an impromptu discussion about sex education, perceptions of different sexualities and whether or not boys tend to use sex toys. It was the kind of discussion that it felt appropriate to have in a room with samples of toys that looked like doorstops and, in some cases, disembodied bits of what used to be people.We were eventually taken upstairs to a corporate-looking office and then stepped into a board room with the very surreal quality that every single inch of the table in the middle was covered in sex toys. We were talked to about how the company made this range of toys, how 99% of them are from China, and how they're impossible to open. We had a long group rap session about what different toys did for different people, although we all seemed to agree that some of them should come with handles. Eventually we were shown in small groups around the warehouse, which was humongous.

That's a great word. I should use it more often.

We bundled back into taxis at the end of the tour clutching bags full of sex toys. On the train back to London there was a lot of swapping. At some point I'm pretty sure that nobody had the same ones they started off with. I also seem to recall offering some to other passengers. These passengers were grateful, as opposed to scared.

After a vague middle period in which members of our group peeled off in order to reconvene later, a few of us went to the Green Carnation. Annie went in to set up and make sure that we didn't get mixed up with the birthday party which was going on downstairs. Rose, Jilly and I went next door to have some semblance of dinner, which was actually delicious; I think I was the only person who didn't then change clothes for the Erotic Meet. Which started.

I'll continue this in a later post. Mostly because I've just realised I haven't had an orgasm for six days and should really check if I'm still working or not. I have a bag of sex toys, in fact.

It was incredibly awesome to meet you and I have to say that you're not far off what I'd imagined! Also, I thought it was really awesome you came on the tour even though you're not much of a sex toy kinda guy.